Last month, Mad Men’s Jon Hamm graced the cover of Details, which hurried to title their interview with the actor “The Last Alpha Male”. The piece detailed Hamm’s slow, but solid rise to the public eye, liberally peppered with descriptions of his life, toys and views on the entertainment industry.

“L.A. represents opportunity,” Hamm told the men’s magazine. “When you try to learn how to act, you approach it with respect. But if you just want to be famous… that’s not that much different than porn. ‘I’m a movie star!’ Well, no, you’re not. You’re a porn star, and that’s completely different. And you know, hey, mazel tov — porn probably built half the houses out here, but you’re selling your dignity in a way that I feel I’m not. And once you sell it, it’s gone. You ain’t getting it back.” … Continue Reading

Ah, sexual head trauma. If we could count the IQ points lost on headboards and walls around the world, we’d probably cry. So we won’t. Anyway, today, you’re in luck — for around $460, now you can enjoy an altogether different kind of safe sex.

Introducing the Chiefstain, a collar developed by industrial design students in Stockholm, Sweden, to offer an alternative to the bicycle helmet. Essentially, the Chieftain is a collar that contains an airbag and sensors. … Continue Reading

While on the air with former Penthouse pet Sam Phillips on The Single Life, she told us that porn star and director Kimberly Kane had told her that semen is particularly painful when it gets in the eye because the sperm present are trying to impregnate the eyeball.

Our editrix was a huge fan of Candace Bushnell’s original column and also enjoyed the show while it ran, despite the fact it bore very little resemblance to the column (by far a darker and more cynical thing, and one that audiences would have detested on sight, even though the pilot made a valiant attempt at it).

Having absolutely zero expectations that the parody would resemble either of the two — or even the two movies that followed — we sat down to watch and were remarkably surprised at how well-written the screenplay by Bensen Herst and Lee Roy Myers was. Myers has proven himself a master of the “sitcum” and it shows: his directing bears a striking resemblance to the original Sex and the City show. … Continue Reading

It’s hard to get a good alibi these days. Information is essential in Los Angeles, and you never know when someone’s gonna sell out your whereabouts for a photo op. Fear not, you no longer need to rely on other people.

Technology is here for you.

Told your wife you’re blowing off steam, cruising along the PCH when you’re really in a suite in Beverly Hills “getting a tour of Amsterdam”? You need iDeluxe’s Fake Call Locations iPhone app.

The app is simple: it plays ambient sounds in the background of your call, so even if you have a gorgeous blonde sucking your dick passionately between your legs or a hunk giving your ass an epic rimjob, you can still make a convincing case for the traffic, a crowd, or even the sounds of the great outdoors.

Assuming you can stifle the moans, that is. Don’t be stupid, now. The only fail possible is between the chair and the keyboard… or the touchscreen and the bed, if you will.

Did we mention you can record your own items to playback during calls? It’s technology at work for the Ferris Bueller in all of us. You know, the one all grown up now and with a Tiger Woods kind of hunger.

You can try to take porn out of the technology, but you can’t take technological pioneers out of the porn industry. Somehow they will always find a way to get around you. The industry is used to barriers. They’ve been getting around them since the first dirty books were banned.

Though Apple’s Steve Jobs has been very vocal about the importance of Apple devices being free of pornography, going as far as to tell users to switch to Android if they have a problem with the liberty he has taken in making himself their parent — an ironic turn considering the Apple 1984 commercial of old. Junior Anti-Sex League, anyone? — there’s nothing he can do about this. … Continue Reading

“We’ve assumed for so long that for both men and women, [sexual] problems were always depressing,” says Kyle Stephenson, a University of Texas at Austin doctoral candidate in psychology. Stephenson recently published a paper on the topic of sexual dissatisfaction, and believes that their survey data proves that sexual dissatisfaction may not necessarily engender great distress. For women, stress seems to come from a variety of factors.

Leonard Derogatis, director of the Center for Sexual Medicine at Sheppard Pratt Health System, believes the reason dysfunction and distress don’t match in women with problems is that the average woman’s sexual desire is “more contextual” than that of a man’s, meaning: it depends on a lot of other aspects of her relationship. … Continue Reading

King penguins — especially male king penguins — are known to pair up. A new study seeking to understand the behavior that led to over a quarter of a penguin colony in Antarctica to partner up with members of the same sex, has uncovered that the cause is not so much that they can’t tell the sexes apart or that they have a tendency toward homosexuality but that they’re lonely.

Simply: there are not enough females in the colony and with the amount of testosterone male penguins have, it’s better to get on a dude than go at ‘em alone. … Continue Reading

The Pentagon has told military recruiters that they must accept gay applicants. Lt. Dan Choi, who was honorably discharged in July under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy (DADT) headed to the recruiting station at Times Square with gay rights advocate David Mixner and Justin Elzie, who was also honorably discharged under DADT in 1997. … Continue Reading

Remember when Dan Rather interviewed Bill Clinton in 2004 about his life and presidency for 60 Minutes? It almost perfectly summarizes everything that’s wrong with us as a species.

“The central question, if I may, and I know this is difficult,” probed Rather, breaching the issue of Monica Lewinsky. “The central question is: why?”

“I think I did something for the worst possible reason,” responded Clinton. “Just because I could. I think that’s the most — just about the most morally indefensible reason that anybody could have for doing anything.”

Having a reason doesn’t make it better. The moral question is about the action, not the reasoning. Nevertheless, the idea that we need reasons to do things continues to be cultivated in the American mind. Slowly, we move toward efficient, streamlined living, demanding that everything we do have A Reason. … Continue Reading

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That Steam allows the objectification and sexualization of female characters in a variety of its games but refuses to accept a game about actually engaging with women in a more interactive fashion is astonishingly backward.

That the site doesn’t take measures to protect user content and has shown incompetence or negligence in regard to user privacy, all the while prohibiting victims from warning others about predatory behavior creates an environment where it is nearly impossible for members of the community to take care of themselves and one another. By enabling FetLife to continue espousing a code of silence, allowing the spinning self-created security issues as “attacks,” and not pointing out how disingenuous FetLife statements about safety are, we are allowing our community to become a breeding ground for exploitation.

Should people who benefit (parents, siblings, children, roommates!) from the earnings of “commercial sex acts” (any sexual conduct connected to the giving or receiving of something of value) be charged with human trafficking? Should someone who creates obscene material that is deemed “deviant” be charged as with human trafficking? Should someone who profits from obscene materials be charged with human trafficking? Should people transporting obscene materials be charged with human trafficking? Should a person who engages in sex with someone claiming to be above the age of consent or furnishing a fake ID to this effect be charged with human trafficking? What if I told you the sentences for that kind of conviction were eight, 14 or 20 years in prison, a fine not to exceed $500,000, and life as a registered sex offender?

If you are a woman, you might be given a chance to prove yourself in this community. Since there is no standard definition of what a “geek” is and it will vary from one judge to the next anyway, chances of failing are high (cake and grief counseling will be available after the conclusion of the test!). If you somehow manage to succeed, you’ll be tested again and again by anyone who encounters you until you manage to establish yourself like, say, Felicia Day. But even then, you’ll be questioned. As a woman, your whole existence within the geek community will be nothing but a series of tests — if you’re lucky. If you aren’t lucky, you’ll be harassed and threatened and those within the culture will tacitly agree that you deserve it.

Zak’s original field, it turns out, is economics, a far cry from the hearts and teddy bears we imagine when we consider his nickname. But after performing experiments on generosity, Zak stumbled on the importance of trust in interactions, which led him, rather inevitably, to research about oxytocin. Oxytocin, you might remember, is a hormone that has been linked previously to bonding — between mothers and children primarily, but also between partners. What Zak has done is take the research a step further, arguing in his recent book, The Moral Molecule, that oxytocin plays a role in determining whether we are good or evil.

Let’s talk about the strippers. Whether they like to be half-naked or not, whether they enjoy turning you on or not, there’s one thing they all have in common: they’re working. Whether you think that taking one’s clothes off for money is a great choice of career is really beside the point (is it a possibility for you to make $500 per hour at your job without a law degree? Just asking). These women are providing fantasy, yes, but that is their job. And as a patron of the establishment where they work, you need to treat them like you would anyone else who provides a service to you.

About

Sex and the 405 is what your newspaper would look like if it had a sex section.

Here you’ll find news about the latest research being conducted to figure out what drives desire, passion, and other sex habits; reviews of sex toys, porn and other sexy things; coverage of the latest sex-related news that have our mainstream media's panties up in a bunch; human interest pieces about sex and desire; interviews with people who love sex, or hate sex, or work in sex, or work to enable you to have better sex; opinion pieces that relate to sex and society; and the sex-related side of celebrity gossip. More...